Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
KIARA
After a few minutes of trying to fight him off, he shoves me into the passenger seat of his beat-up truck—the same one I saw speeding away from my house weeks ago—at gunpoint. I try to open the door, but it won’t budge, and the window won’t roll down, either.
Oh my God—he’s going to fucking kill me. Who will take care of Grandma when I’m gone?
Panic begins to creep up in me, fast and hard. “Let me out,” I plead breathlessly as he gets into the driver’s side, lurching across his body to open the door. He grabs me roughly by the arm and pushes me back into the seat.
“That’s enough, Kiara,” he says with deadly calm, those dark blue eyes boring through me.
“Please,” I whisper, tears burning my eyes. “Please let me go. My grandma can’t live without me.”
This is too much. The idea of being robbed makes me feral, and everything the two of us have done has been constantly replaying in my mind for weeks, but realizing I might actually die tonight is too much for me to bear.
The thought of death doesn’t scare me as much as the knowledge that Grandma will be here all alone until her heart finally gives out.
My captor says nothing else as he pulls out of my driveway. I turn around in my seat and look out the back window, silent tears wracking my body the further away we drive until we’ve left the street. I try to take deep, calming breaths to keep from screaming, but my entire being is jittery with anticipation.
We ride in complete silence, the air thick with tension. Since it’s so late, there aren’t any other cars on the road, so I can’t signal for help.
Not usually one for observation, I make a mental note of every turn we make, every street sign and landmark we pass.
About thirty minutes later, we’ve driven so far from my house that I don’t recognize where we are. We haven’t been in the city for the past ten minutes, and when my captor pulls into a clearing, my stomach drops.
This is where I’m going to die.
In the distance, I see nothing but the foreboding darkness of a forest.
“Don’t,” I whisper as he gets out of the truck. I quickly lock my door, then I jump into the driver’s seat and lock that, too. When I spot the keys he left in the ignition, I want to cry from happiness, but when I realize the truck is a manual transmission, my heart sinks.
He taps on the window, and when I look at him, I can see the satisfaction in his eyes.
My mom had been wanting to teach me how to drive stick since I was old enough, but I never had any interest.
“What if you’re kidnapped?” she’d ask. “How would you escape if they drove a stick shift?”
I had waved her off nonchalantly. “That’s ridiculous, Mom. That’ll never happen. Stop being so paranoid.”
But she wasn’t being paranoid, because look at me now. I would give anything to have her here with me right now, to help me get out of this mess I’ve gotten myself into. I’m completely at the mercy of a stranger, a man who has given me more pleasure than I’ve experienced in years, but also terrifies the absolute hell out of me because I don’t know exactly what he’s capable of.
I need to figure out how to get out of this situation alive.
I don’t have many options. I can either hope he doesn’t have another key and wait it out until morning, or I can bolt out of the truck right now and try to run for help.
The second option might be the stupidest, because he has a gun, and I have no idea if he wants to use it on me.
My captor taps on the glass again to get my attention. When I look at him, I’m horrified to see that he’s got his gun pointed straight at me.
“Shit,” I curse desperately, hitting the steering wheel. I can’t believe this is happening.
I scoot to the passenger side and put my hand on the door, fingers poised to pull up the lock.
I’m not ready to die. There’s still so much I want to do, places I want to travel to, food I want to try…
I want to see Grandma again and tell her how much I love her. Yolanda will be waiting for me at our favorite restaurant tomorrow night—what will she do when I don’t show up? Will she be worried that this man might have done something to me, or will she just assume that I didn’t want to come? She doesn’t have a description of him because I don’t even know what he looks like.
Taking a deep breath, I finally unlock the door, and he opens it from the outside. He hadn’t given me a chance to put on shoes, so my toes curl when my bare feet land in a small puddle.
A chill permeates the air, and lightning cuts through thick clouds as the brontide cautions an oncoming storm. I wrap my arms around myself and look around, trying to see where we are in the darkness, but I don’t even have the light of the moon to show me.
I flinch when I feel something on my back. When I go to turn around, my captor tsks and grabs my face to turn it away from him.
“I’ll give you a five-minute head start, baby,” he murmurs in my ear, gun poised against the small of my back.
Despite myself, I shiver from the warmth of his breath on my skin. I’m freezing in these skintight clothes.
“A head start for what?” I whisper, teeth chattering.
“To run. And you better not let me catch you, because if you do, I’ll devour you,” he growls, the sound raising the hairs on the back of my neck.
I make a beeline for the road, but he yanks me back and pushes me toward the dark forest.
I don’t have a choice.
As I sprint toward the forest, I only have the flashes of lightning to guide my way. My bare feet pound on the forest floor as I try to put distance between him and me. I block out the thoughts of the predators lurking in here, desperately hoping I don’t become some creature’s meal tonight.
But that might be preferable to what my captor has planned for me.
I can hear him not too far behind me; his footsteps are loud as he follows me further into the woods.
It hasn’t even been five minutes yet!
“You liar!” I shout into the darkness. I cry out when my toe catches on a thick branch and I go tumbling to the ground. I scramble to get up, but he’s on me in seconds.
“Please!” I scream, twisting in his grip to get him to let me go. “Leave me alone!”
“ Leave me alone! ” he screams back, mocking me. His grip is harsh as he pins me against a tree with one hand. He uses the other to take off his belt.
I furiously shake my head. “No! No, please?—!”
My cries are cut off by a sharp crack to the face.
“Be a good girl and shut the fuck up,” he growls in my ear, stroking my stinging cheek.
I’m silent as he ties my wrists to a branch above my head with his belt, tears streaming down my face and soaking into the fabric of my tank top. In the darkness, I can just barely make him out as he takes off his ski mask. I so desperately want to see him, to commit to memory the face of my murderer.
I want to beg and plead for my life, want to offer him money or some other valuables, but everything I want to say sits in my throat like a lump of ice.
It wouldn’t make a difference, anyway. He’s made it perfectly clear that all he wants is me .
His rumbling chuckle rolls over my skin, making me shiver along with the drop in temperature.
“Look at you, mariposa,” he says quietly, with a slight accent I’ve never heard from him before. He twirls a curl of my hair around his finger. “Bound and completely at my mercy. What am I going to do with you now?”
“Let me go,” I beg again. “Let me go and I won’t tell anyone. I’ll give you anything you want. Please, I swear.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just cocks his head in that predatory manner that makes me wet, despite myself.
“The only thing I want is you .”
Like a viper, he grips my breasts in both hands. I scream from the pain as he squeezes the soft flesh as hard as he can.
“Scream, baby, scream!” he shouts over the rising thunder, laughing maniacally.
He loosens his grip on my breasts and starts massaging them. When he leans in, I think he’s going to kiss me, but then his tongue darts out and starts licking away my tears. He cups my breasts before pinching my hardened nipples between his fingers. I grit my teeth against the pain, not giving him the satisfaction of hearing me scream again.
He leans his forehead against mine and lifts my shirt, trailing his hands over my now exposed chest. I gasp from the cold, but he crowds closer to me to keep me warm.
“I’m going to enjoy breaking you, butterfly,” he murmurs against my lips before parting them with his tongue.
The shock of him kissing me is overshadowed by what he starts doing to my nipples. He rolls the sensitive buds between his thumbs and forefingers, playing with them to torture me. Sparks of pleasure shoot from my clit to the pit of my stomach. I moan pathetically into his mouth and squeeze my legs together to get some friction, but he wedges his thigh in between my own. I try grinding against him, but he bites my bottom lip so hard that I stop.
“Stop doing that,” he growls. “You only get to have the pleasure that I give you. Do you understand?”
When I nod meekly, the corner of his mouth curves into a mischievous grin.
My captor plants kisses from my mouth all the way down to my heaving chest. I squirm when he captures one peaked nipple in between his teeth and tugs gently. Pleasure shoots from the nub straight down to my aching sex. I want to try grinding against him again, but I don’t want him to punish me for disobeying him.
Grabbing my other nipple between his thumb and forefinger, he rolls it around to torture and tease me. I lean my head back against the tree and moan.
Oh, God.
My nipples are so sensitive from the cold and my first two orgasms, that I feel another coming on quickly.
He goes back and forth between both breasts, licking and sucking on them like his life depends on it, massaging the aching flesh in between. I desperately want to rub myself against his thigh to get the friction I need.
“What’s your name?” I ask in a strained voice, looking down at him.
He drags a nipple through his teeth and looks at me. “Why do you want to know? So you can turn me into the police?”
He’s still stimulating me while talking to me, and I can feel my third orgasm of the night about to come crashing into me.
“I want to know what I should call out when I come,” I say breathlessly, grinding my pussy against his thigh despite what he said.
He takes his thigh from in between mine and kicks my feet apart, placing his feet on the insides of mine to keep my legs spread.
“ Please ,” I whimper when he rubs his thumbs over both of my nipples.
Leaning in, he licks the shell of my ear and murmurs, “Zyran.”
I scream his name at the top of my lungs when my release hits me hard and swift. When I’m finished, I slump against him, savoring his warmth and woodsy scent.
“What does it mean?” I pant, lifting my head to look at him.
He backs up and looks me up and down. I know I look pathetic in my skin-tight clothes, panting and sweating from the orgasm he just forced out of me. Stars are dancing in front of my eyes, and it makes it even harder to see him out here.
Cocking his head in a predatory manner, he says, “The Storm.”
Storm indeed. All he’s done since I met him is crash through my life like a rampant hurricane, leaving nothing but destruction in his wake.
He leans down to give me one more heated kiss before turning and walking away like he didn’t just do what he did.
“Wait!” I call after him, struggling against my restraints. “Don’t leave me here! Please! ”
He ignores me and keeps walking back toward the clearing.
Dammit!
Tears burn my eyes as I frantically pull at the belt, trying hard to tug it loose. After about a minute, I’m finally able to slip my hands through and free myself. Relief washes over me, but the feeling is short-lived when ice-cold raindrops begin to chill my skin.
I huff out an angry breath and run as fast as I can, hoping beyond hope that I’m going the right way.
After a few minutes, I finally find my way back to the clearing. My stalker is still there, sitting in the front seat of his truck with a smirk on his face. His mask is still off, but he’s so far away that I can barely make him out.
I start to run toward him, but he makes a U-turn and speeds off. I sprint after him, screaming for him to stop, but he keeps going. I don’t stop chasing after him until the truck is nothing more than a spot in the darkness.